Podcast #162 Proximity and closure in photography

I have been helping a number of photographers recently with editing and sequencing. Some of them have a similar set of photographs that reminded me of my work in one particular way. They were very chaotic images. One of the things that I like to explore in my photography is finding the point of peace or relaxation in a chaotic place. In my work, that is often finding something in nature among the trees, rocks, and waves.  As I got to thinking about how we deal with this chaos and create meaning, I returned to some psychology books of my past. In there I re-read about the gestalt approach to psychology which was all about how we make order from chaos when we only see pieces of the scene. This research is what bore out the idea that the sum is greater than the parts.